Week 4

Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin

Both books read to CDC, Pre-K, and Kinder 

Skills: What we love about school, number sense, subtraction skills 

This week we rocked out to two awesome Pete the Cat books by Eric Litwin. The kids love Pete the Cat because he is cool and doesn't sweat the small stuff. All of the books have free downloadable songs so the books are best shared while listening to the author read and sing the words, and the kids loved singing along. We first shared, Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes, and then we shared the newest addition to our library, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. I used my document camera because the kids always love seeing the book really big up on the screen. 

After reading Rocking in my School Shoes, the kids shared what they loved to do in their school shoes. Then after sharing, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons the classes were given a coloring page where they could color Pete and his buttons according to the number key. It was a fun time had by all!  

In 4th grade we began working on their research data project in math. This is a project that the 4th grade math teacher and I have been collaborating on for a while so I thought I would share the details. In class they have been learning about different types of data and graphs, so this project is giving them a chance to explore data that they are interested in. The students were put into pairs and they could choose any topic to explore just as long as it was numerical or measurable. Some of the topics the students chose were things like, the top 5 tallest mountains in the world, or the top 5 busiest airports. It was fun to see what they wanted to know more about! The next step of the project was then actually gathering the data and that is where I came in. They visited the library to start to research their topics and gather their data. I helped them by giving them reliable sources to help their search and a cool online tool to help them make their graph once their data had been found.     

             

In their math class discussing different types of data and coming up with their project ideas.

In the library showing the students some of the sources they could use to search for their topics. 

Their next and final step will be making their graph to display their results. 

Overall, the kids seemed excited about the project and they enjoyed getting to come to the library to conduct the research. It made me happy because I really want all of my students to think of library and their librarian as valuable resources. So by having the chance to collaborate with the 4th grade math teacher we really felt like the project was taken to a whole new level that it had never been before. The kids got to utilize the library and they learned about some of its many valuable sources. So my hope is that this project is just the beginning of many more to come!